Planet Mars: 'Texoli' Butte on Mount Sharp | NASA Curiosity Mars Rover

Planet Mars: 'Texoli' Butte on Mount Sharp | NASA Curiosity Mars Rover

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Celebrating 12+ Years on Mars (2012-2024)
Mission Name: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
Rover Name: Curiosity
Main Job: To determine if Mars was ever habitable to microbial life. 
Launch: Nov. 6, 2011
Landing Date: Aug. 5, 2012, Gale Crater, Mars

For more information on NASA's Mars missions, visit: mars.nasa.gov

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its right Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this panorama on Nov. 26, 2024, the 4,375th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Made from 251 individual images containing 393 million pixels, the panorama's color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth. This is one of the largest high-resolution panoramas Curiosity has taken during its mission.

Curiosity is making its way up the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain found within Mars' Gale Crater. Dominating the scene in this image is a butte on Mount Sharp nicknamed "Texoli". It has many stratigraphic layers that scientists can study to learn more about the formation of this region of Mars. Texoli stands about 525 feet (160 meters) tall.

A butte is "an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top."

To the right of Texoli is another butte nicknamed "Wilkerson." It is 262 feet (80 meters) tall. Curiosity will travel between the two buttes as it drives away from Gediz Vallis channel. It has been investigating this area for the past year, and from Gediz Vallis (Gediz valley) itself, where it has been for four years.

On the horizon beyond Texoli on the left side of the image is the Yardang Unit—a higher-elevation geologic region that Curiosity's scientists hope to visit in the years to come. On the horizon on the right side of the image, beyond Wilkerson, is the floor of Gale Crater and, visible through a dusty haze, the crater's distant northern rim.

For more about Curiosity, visit: 
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

Curiosity was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Release Date: Dec. 16, 2024

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